“Colin Andrews, Mr. Mayor.” Colin took a step forward and offered his hand, which Sully grabbed and shook firmly. “I had worked for the city of Paradise Valley for a while.”
“The police detective, right?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor,” Colin replied.
“Please, call me Sully.” He offered a weak smile.
Emily noticed a nervousness about Sully that she’d never seen before—shifting eyes, a jittery resonance to his voice, the dark circles. It wasn’t that they were ever close friends, but because he was Maggie’s brother, they were well acquainted.
“Would it be possible to speak to Emily alone?” Sully asked, eyeing Colin.
Emily glanced at Colin and quirked an eyebrow.
“Sure, I’ll just go check on the grill.” Colin made himself scarce.
“Let’s go in the living room and sit down.” Emily gestured toward the sofa. What could Sully want with her?
Sully took a seat at the end of the couch and Emily sank down on the chair perpendicular to it.
“Can I get you something to drink, Sully? I could get you a glass of wine or something.”
“No, thank you. You left me several messages, so I thought it best to come and talk to you in person. I don’t have much time, so let me get right to the point.” His voice was quiet, his gaze darting around. “I don’t want Colin overhearing this conversation. I know he’s not working as a cop right now, but he will be again. And if he knows I did something illegal, he’ll be duty-bound to arrest me.”
“Oh, Sully, what have you done?”
“Lucas came to me last week and offered to let me buy a couple of condos at his new resort, for a deeply-discounted price. He convinced me that if I bought them, with a quick turn around, I could make a lot of money. With Carolyn so sick,” his voice began to crack, “the doctor and hospital bills are piling up.” He worried his hands in his lap. His eyes moistened and he appeared as if he was fighting back tears. Sully took a deep breath.
Emily had questions, but she held her tongue and let him continue.
“He knew I was desperate enough to jump at the opportunity. I told him I didn’t have the money, that I’d have to pass, but he convinced me to borrow it from the city retirement fund.”
“Oh, Sully, no.”
“I thought I’d have time to sell the condos and get the money back in the account before anyone noticed it was missing. I knew it was wrong, but I…I…aw damn, I don’t know what I was thinking,” he exclaimed under his breath.
He went on to explain how he’d received the notice from the auditor and had asked Lucas for the money back at the engagement party.
The private pow-wow—I knew something was wrong.
Sully described how Lucas had told him no and that, in fact, the whole resort project was a scam.
“I don’t understand. Why would he come right out and tell you that?” Emily questioned. “I wouldn’t think he’d want anyone to know.”
“He said he was telling me so he could hold it over my head. He wanted me to use my influence to get others to invest in the project, knowing that if I didn’t, he would expose me. If I did what he asked, he said he’d return the hundred thousand dollars to me before the audit.”
“So, basically, he was blackmailing you.”
“That’s right. The night he died, I paid him a visit. I went to his office and begged for the money back. I threatened him with a gun, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. He said he wouldn’t give me the money back yet.”
“You pulled a gun on him?”
“He knew I wasn’t going to kill him, because if I did I’d never get the money back. He warned me that if I breathed a word of this to anyone he would ruin me, and he would ruin Maggie.”
“Oh, Maggie…poor Maggie. She was going to marry that shyster.”
“No,” Sully said, shaking his head, “that was never part of the plan.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“He was never going to marry her. He said he was going to disappear with all the money before the wedding, that Maggie was just a front, a beard, a way to involve me to help him suck in more investors.”
“Maybe knowing what a slime-ball he was will help her get over him,” Emily hoped.
“He was more than a slime-ball, he was a—” Sully’s face flushed red with anger and the whites of his eyes